Skills for the future

• Who has had or currently has a job?

• What type of work do they or did they do?

• How did they get their job?

• Ask students: What skills do you think you need for the future? Think about social skills, knowledge, communication skills.

• Students brainstorm, making notes of ideas on individual sticky notes.

• Allow 5 minutes.

• Students form small groups.

• Using their sticky notes, they group their answers into categories. (They decide on these themselves.)

• Students share with the class the categories they selected and explain why they grouped their notes in that way.

Write the following on a worksheet or the board. These skills have been identified as the top skills young people will need in the future.

• Complex problem solving

• Critical thinking

• Creativity

• Coordinating with others

• Emotional intelligence

• Judgement and decision making

• Service orientation

• People management

• Negotiation

• Cognitive flexibility

You can check out the article that discusses these skills here.

As a group, ask students to rank these skills from the least to the most important.

• Divide the class into smaller groups if needed.

• This activity may take some time, and students may disagree on the ranking.

Once the groups are done, ask them to share why they ranked the skills in the way they have.

• Which of the skills have you just practised in this exercise?

• Why are these skills so important for the workforce?

• How can we develop these skills?

• Students select two skills from the list that they feel they need to develop.

• Students develop a plan to improve their skills in these areas. This could be a goal or a pledge.